Meltdown
by 3.1415926535897932384626433383
Summary: First year Newt Scamander has a bad day in the sensory hell that is Hogwarts; Leta tries to help, sort of, and makes everything worse.


As soon as he wakes up, Newt knows that it's going to be a bad day. He hasn't even sat up yet and he feels sick to his stomach, the blankets constricting and uncomfortable when he knows that last night they were satiny and soothingly heavy, giving him the feeling that he's slowly suffocating in fields of yellow fabric. He struggles out of them, the feeling of relief he gets when freed only lasting a moment before he feels like he's about to throw up once more. The alarm ringing in the background - he thinks it's Stebbins' - is like an air raid siren, piercing into his skull and bouncing around.

His dormmates are still in bed, one or two of them stirring in response to the alarm. Most of the time Newt wakes up the same way they do, uneager to move out of the warm cave of blankets and sheets he's cocooned in, but every so often this happens. He grabs his clothes and ducks into the bathroom to change before the others wake up. Theseus makes fun of him sometimes for refusing to change in front of anyone, even other boys, but he doesn't see any difference between exposing his skin to a girl, a teacher, or his dormmates. He likes his privacy.

When he comes back in, all of his dormmates are up, midway through getting dressed. He briefly considers heading on down to the Great Hall by himself and trying to grab a bite to eat before anyone else arrives, but he can't convince himself that it would be worth it. He hates the Great Hall at the best of times, the cavernous space bouncing every sound, every echo off the walls, which are covered in bright, blaring house colors, and filled with people - he doesn't really mind a few people at a time, or even a classful, as long as he doesn't have to talk, but the entire school in one room makes his stomach twist nervously just to think about it. No, he thinks he'll skip breakfast this morning.

He probably wouldn't have been able to stomach anything anyways, he thinks to himself. This will give his stomach a chance to untie the knots it's no doubt been wrapping itself into.  
When everyone has gone downstairs, he sits on the ground against the brightly colored golden walls for a moment, carefully breathing deeply. After a minute, he feels a little better. He stands up and opens his trunk, searching for what he needed, but it must be in the bottom somewhere - he can't find it.

Finally it turns up in a pocket off to the side. He remembers putting it there now, thinking that it would be much easier to find if he put it in there - a little ironic, considering that it actually took him longer to find it than usual. He smiles a little at the humor of it and sits back against the wall, holding the longest red hippogriff feather that his mother had given him in his right hand and gently running his fingers down the smooth shaft. It makes him wonder what the hippogriff this had come from, his own Artemis, was doing right now, and he spends a few minutes imagining that. It helps, a little.  
When he looks at his watch again, he only has fifteen minutes till class begins, and that ties his stomach right back up. He needs to get going, and he already knows that it will be a long day. One more deep breath, and he picks up his bag and leaves.

The first class is Potions, which he's alright at - nothing special, but he can pass the class. What really makes it memorable is that it's one of the few classes he shares with Leta. Usually Hufflepuff is paired with Ravenclaw, but in Potions, it's Hufflepuff and Slytherin, Leta's house. He gets there a few minutes early and chooses a seat in the back of the class, where it's quiet and he'll mostly go unnoticed. The classroom is, unfortunately, in the center of the castle, or close to it, and it's dark even with the lamps and lanterns strung up all over the place. Normally he doesn't like the dark, cramped feeling of the Potions classroom, but it's not so bad right now when he'd rather it be dark and quiet. His senses are working overtime right now.

Leta sees him as soon as she comes in, though, giving him a grin. Her short black curls bob as she walks, and she tips her head to the side.

"Where were you at breakfast?" she says, a little scoldingly. She plops down besides him. "With you gone, I actually had to sit at my own table, next to Rosier. Don't you know how much I hate sitting with Rosier?"

"I was upstairs," says Newt, "I didn't want to come down for breakfast -"

"You aren't sick, are you?" she interrupts, hand coming up to cover her mouth immediately. "You had better not get me sick! My aunt had dragon pox over the summer and it was awful, she had to go to Saint Mungo's for days." He smiles, glancing at her and shaking his head.

"No, I'm not sick," he says. Leta lets her hand fall from her mouth, relieved for a moment before suddenly looking suspicious.

"Then why didn't you come down?" she asks. He doesn't know what to say - he knows if he tells her he felt sick to his stomach that she wouldn't believe that he wasn't sick, and he's not sure how to  
explain it. He struggles for a minute to find words; she raises her eyebrows expectantly.

"I just... sometimes I don't feel quite... I don't like going down to the Great Hall sometimes," he says. "It's not... it's a little overwhelming, d'you know what I mean?"

"Oh, that thing?" she says. "You've got to work through that, come on. It's all in your head, you'd know if you would just give it a try. I can't believe you condemned me to sitting next to Rosier because you didn't feel like going to the Great Hall." Her face is pulled into a pout, her tone vaguely injured, and she looks away from him. He instantly feels bad - he should've gone downstairs.

"Next time," he promises. "I didn't mean to do that. I'm sorry." She doesn't look at him.

By then it's time for the class to start. Professor Taverna calls them all to order and there isn't time to say anything else, and Newt's heart sinks a little, feeling even worse. Then Leta looks over at him, cocks her head in the extremely expressive way that she does, and gives him the tiniest of smiles, letting him know that she'll be good enough to not hold it against him. It's all that he can do to stop his hands from dancing through the air.

Leta is his partner, of course, for the potion they make today. He's been in awe of her potion-making skills since the beginning of the year, when she somehow managed to make a perfect Hiccoughing Potion in the very first class. She never seems to mind him tagging along, rarely gets tired of company and telling him to go away. He's grateful to her for that, and he lets her take the lead in whatever they do. Newt's always been more of a background player than a star, anyways, and it makes her happy to be in charge.

Her favorite part is directing, and that's what she usually does - her job in Potions is to read him the instructions and make sure he follows them correctly, while he does the actual mixing and stirring and such. They work together perfectly, always getting excellent marks, and if he doesn't necessarily need her to read to him, so what?

He doesn't remember most of the next few hours. Once Potions is over, he checks his schedule and follows it to the right class, but all he can recall when he thinks back that evening is the nausea and the jittery, nervous energy that makes it impossible for him to stop tapping his feet and snapping his fingers.

Finally, it's lunchtime, and when he reviews the state he's in, he decides he'd probably be better off skipping that too. He considers heading to the kitchens to get a snack, but he doesn't even want to confront the house elves in the kitchen, as kind as they may be. He grabs his feather from his room, passing Stebbins on his way upstairs (thank god, Stebbins is going downstairs so they don't speak past 'hi'), and heads out to the Forbidden Forest, the best place at Hogwarts that he knows. He can completely relax in the dark, living spaces between the trees.

He glances around to make sure no one sees him and then heads in. There's a clearing about five minutes' walking in, and as long as he's quiet and doesn't disturb anyone, he's mostly left alone. He's heard that there are centaurs, suspects that he heard them once, but he's never met one, and based on their reputation and the fact that he was technically trespassing on their grounds, he was okay with that. They've left him alone, and he's perfectly willing to leave them alone.

He spends the best hour all day sitting with his back up against a tree, his weighted jacket soothingly heavy, hippogriff feather in hand and thinking of absolutely nothing.

It ends too soon, his wristwatch vibrating gently to remind him that the hour is nearly over and it's time to get back to class. He checks his schedule; this afternoon, he has four classes, arithmancy, history of magic, defense against the dark arts, and then charms. None of them should be to difficult; the first two will require nothing more than taking notes. In arithmancy, considering the textbook they're using, he really doesn't even have to do that, and he briefly considers skipping the class, but he doesn't want to get in any more trouble than he usually does, and arithmancy isn't his best subject anyways. He really should go.

Excellently, DADA is a pure theory class, and they spend the entire period reading the textbook. His stomach doesn't calm down, per se, but he can breathe again, and to some extent he manages to still his hands. Charms is another story. He's never had a purely theoretical lesson in charms; they always practice the charm they study, which is usually fine, but it's late in the day, and he still feels terrible, and practicing in front of the whole class will take even more out of him today than it usually does. He grits his teeth before he opens the door, steeling himself.

For once, Leta is in the classroom before Newt is, and for whatever reason, she's decided to sit in the front of the class. He moves towards the back today - he really doesn't want to sit up front, where he can feel everyone's eyes watching his every move, where the professor's eyes will land on him, where if he makes a mistake everyone will see him and tease him for it - but Leta sees him and waves him over vigorously.

A deep breath, and he sits down. His head is buzzing again, at least as bad as it was this morning, and he can barely hear what Leta says, but he nods here and there, and she's perfectly happy to talk and talk. He's not even sure she notices that something is wrong - just as well since she wouldn't have been happy about him deserting her to sit in the back of the class anyway. He gets the gist of it - someone in Slytherin was talking about something rude that someone had said to Leta, which she was very indignant about - but he doesn't get any specifics. He knows it's terrible, but he almost feels relieved when professor Prince stands up and starts the class.

Today they're doing the Levitation Charm, no partner needed. Professor Prince spends a few minutes talking, discussing the theory of the spell, the wand motion, which he follows dutifully, and finally, the incantation, then tells them to spend the rest of the time practicing it.

He waves his wand, mutters 'wingardium leviosa!' under his breath, and... it doesn't work. Nor does it the second time, or the third... or the fourth. He suspects it has something to do with the white noise roaring in his head. He takes a moment to close his eyes, try to empty his mind, takes a few deep breaths; it's difficult, and he doesn't make much headway, but after a minute or two, he gives the charm another go.

Still nothing.

Meanwhile, Leta gets it almost immediately.

"I did it!" she crows. "Look! I did it on the second try!"

"Who cares?" says a boy a few seats away, clearly irritated that he hasn't made it yet.

"Belby," says the professor, a note of warning in his voice, and Belby goes back to repeating the incantation, somewhat more sulkily; Leta doesn't say anything else, her excitement dampened a little, but she's still grinning proudly.

By the end of the class, most of the students have managed to make their feathers at least fly up a few inches; Newt is the only one who still hasn't managed to even get his to turn over. He can't say he's surprised. On the way out the door, Leta snags him.

"Let's head down to dinner," she says. "I'm sure you'll get the hang of it with a little practice!" He gives her a tired smile, fingers quietly tapping his leg. He doesn't know how he can be simultaneously exhausted and bursting with energy.

"Actually, I was thinking I might go outside for a little while and - "

"Absolutely not! You didn't have breakfast and you didn't show up for lunch - how can you expect to feel fine if you haven't eaten all day?" she demands.

"I'll get something from the kitchen," he promises her, "but I really don't feel like that would be a good plan - "

"Plan, schman," Leta says. "A good meal is all you need. Besides, you definitely can't abandon me again. I hate sitting with my house. You know no one will talk to me, and you've already ditched me twice  
today - and don't think I didn't see you trying to move back away from me at the beginning of charms. You owe me, that really hurt my feelings." She looks at him, sad-eyed and pleading, and he can't say no.

"Well, ok," he says, guilty, "I guess you're right. I might not stay very long, though." She's all smiles again.

After more than a year at Hogwarts, he shouldn't be surprised by the noise in the Great Hall, but when he steps into the room, it hits him like a wave in the ocean, slamming into his whole body and not letting up, dragging him backwards and almost knocking the air out of his lungs. It's for Leta, he reminds himself, and he forces his legs to follow her to the Gryffindor bench. Sitting is a little better than standing, and he closes his eyes, hands tapping nervously against his legs in the same pattern over and over - 1-2-3-4, 1-3-2-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-4-2-3, and repeat. He keeps his hands in his lap, stops them from creeping up to cover his ears, but he can't stop the tapping, and he can't stop his leg from bouncing violently. Breathe, he thinks, it's just half an hour.

Leta doesn't notice the state he's in. She's busy chatting with a Gryffindor boy, Newt thinks he's a fifth year, but he's not sure. Food appears on the plates on the table, but Newt can't even think of forcing anything down. He stares at his hands, trying to focus on the pattern he's tapping to distract him from the too-bright lights and the nauseating smells of the foods he would normally enjoy, from the overwhelming, screaming ruckus that feels like it's drowning out everything else, but it doesn't work. His tapping grows more erratic.

Finally Leta glances over at him, noticing his empty plate. Her own is loaded with sweets and all of her favorite foods, which is how it usually is.

"Newt!" she scolds him. "I dragged you down to eat dinner and you haven't got anything on your plate!" He can't say anything. She rolls her eyes exasperatedly and grabs him a bun. "At least eat this. It won't be my fault if you feel even worse tomorrow, so you had better not come crying to me." She turns back to the other boy and they pick the conversation back up almost immediately.

Then suddenly the crowd quiets down for a moment and Newt sees an older girl climb up on the table and cry something - he can't understand what and at the moment he really doesn't care. As soon as she finishes speaking, almost every kid in the hall starts yelling and clapping and cheering, and what was a wave before becomes a tsunami and he can't breathe, he can't think he can't can't can't he has to get out of here, he has to, he has to go his hands are flapping everywhere and a dish crashes to the floor he tries to go trying to get away and he stands up too fast, too clumsily and the bench flips backwards dumping Leta and two others on the floor and he trips and gets up he has to run he has to get out this is too much too much too much

When Newt can breathe again, he's outside on the grass, leaning against a stone wall and sitting in its shade. He's not far from the giant doors to the castle. He closes his eyes for a moment and inhales, holding it for as long as he can until it all explodes out of him with a woosh. He's tired, and though the sun hasn't quite gone down yet, he's ready to go to bed already.

When his dormmates come in a few hours later, he's fast asleep. They don't bother to keep their voices down, but Newt sleeps right through it - doesn't even stir. He's exhausted.

When he wakes up, he feels a little better, but he knows it will be another long day. His dormates are all staring at him, and he can feel their eyes boring into him, little daggers twisting into his shoulder. When he comes out of the bathroom, Stebbins has a curious eyebrow raised.

"What was your deal last night?" he demands abruptly, buttoning up his shirt. Newt shrugs, looking away. Stebbins rolls his eyes, runs a hand through his hair, and leaves; the other boys follow him, all trying to discreetly glance at Newt as they go. They fail, of course.

He hears the whispers that run up and down the table when he sits down, notices dozens of eyes glancing his way before turning back around. He spreads jam on a few slices of toast as quickly as he can and wraps them up in a napkin. Before he leaves, he looks for Leta; she's at her own table, not looking his way, and he decides to go say good morning. Sometimes, he knows, if you act like nothing odd has happened, people will go along with it. It's worth a try, anyways.

"Good morning, Leta," he says politely. Everyone within ten feet looks up at him, eyes stabbing into him hot and sharp. Everyone, that is, who is not named Leta. "I, uh, - Leta?" he stutters, painfully aware of the people watching. Leta doesn't answer him; she still hasn't acted as though she's noticed him, and he knows it's intentionally. Apparently, Leta won't go along with it. In a last ditch effort, he tries tapping her shoulder, but as soon as his hand touches her sweater she shrugs it off. It has the result he wants, sort of - she turns to look at him, anyways. Her eyes are spiteful and hot, and she spits "Go away, you little freak," at him. Newt's eyes widen - he's not sure how to respond to this, and so he doesn't, he just leaves. By the time he steps out of the Great Hall, his fingers are counting on their own again, and he doesn't even try to control it.

Ten minutes later, Leta comes out of the hall. She doesn't see him, because he's sitting in the far corner, and he stilled his hands as soon as he heard someone coming near. He's not sure what just happened, desperately hopeful that he misread the situation somehow, so he tries once more.

"Leta," he calls. She freezes where she stands, and he's not sure what to expect. After a minute, she turns her eyes to him. Theseus would say to make eye contact here, he thinks, and he does, as best he can. Her eyes are still hot and sharp, a spear hardened in flame, but she stares at him a minute and then walks over to join him on the floor.

"What, Newt?" she says, voice as cold as it was hot before.

"I just wanted to say - good morning, I came down to have breakfast with you - " he starts, trying still to act like everything is exactly as it was two days ago.

"Don't," she interrupts.

"Don't - what?" he says, bewildered.

"Don't act like we're the same, like we're still friends. The whole school saw what happened yesterday. You know exactly what I'm talking about," says Leta, her arms crossed defensively.

"We are still friends, Leta," he says, more confused than before. "Why wouldn't we be?" She stares at him, incredulous.

"You embarrassed me yesterday - you made me look stupid! You flipped the bench over and you threw me on the ground, in front of the whole school! And then, you stormed away, and you left me  
behind to pick everything up! I thought you cared about me," she says, her eyes full of tears, "But you just left me." Newt is aghast.

"I didn't mean to, Leta, I didn't want to hurt you, I swear! I just - I had to get out of there, I had to go, and I didn't think about - "

"You never think about me," she accuses, and the tears spill over. "I thought I was your best friend, Newt." Her voice quivers as she talks, but her back stays straight - a Lestrange is proud and strong and Leta is always determined to do her family proud.

"You are," he says. He isn't sure what else he can say to make this better and he doesn't know how to explain what he felt last night, not sure he wants to, if it hurts Leta like this. "You are, I swear, and I  
would never hurt you on purpose." She looks at him for a moment, and he has no idea what she's thinking - even less of an idea than usual.

"You swear?" she whispers finally, and he nods fervently.

"Of course."

"Ok," she says, and sniffs. After a minute of them still sitting there, Newt trying to work out why, she wipes her eyes and stands up, heading out of the Great Hall. He follows.


End file.
